Someone Give Hailey Bieber's Marketing Team a Raise
Everything Hailey Bieber — or at least her marketing team — touches turns to gold. Rhode Skin, the model and entrepreneur's beauty brand, is riding high on a streak of wildly successful launches.
Its most recent win: the release of Pocket Blush, Rhode's first foray into makeup.
The product itself isn't exactly innovative. It's a stick of cream blush packaged in a palm-sized tube. Countless other brands — Pat McGrath Labs, Milk Makeup, Westman Atelier, Merit, etc. — offer essentially the same product.
But Pocket Blush is garnering outsize buzz all the same. It's pretty obvious that Bieber herself has a lot to do with the hype. She's a celebrity with a massive following — everything she does, from the clothing she wears to the makeup products she uses, becomes a headline or a full-blown trend.
What's less obvious is how Rhode capitalizes on her fame. Cleverly, the brand has become a vehicle to turn the countless fads Bieber inspires into product that fans can buy straight from the source.
Take, for example, Rhode's best-selling moisturizing serum. In 2021, Bieber posted a TikTok video of her skincare routine, captioning it "glazed donut vibes." "Glazed Donut Skin" quickly caught on, becoming shorthand for a glowy, moisturized complexion.
A year later, Rhode went live. Its hero product: Peptide Glazing Fluid, a milky serum that promised a Bieber-level glow. Fans no longer had to recreate her look by layering on a mash-up of face creams, oils, and highlighters — they could buy Glazed Donut Skin in one fell swoop, directly from the woman who started it all.
The launch of Pocket Blush followed a similar playbook. Flushed cheeks have been a hallmark of Bieber's makeup looks for years. In 2023, she posted a TikTok video documenting her liberal use of blush, captioning the clip "Everyday Strawberry Makeup." Unsurprisingly, it jump-started a new trend: Strawberry Girl Makeup, defined by berry-stained cheeks and freckles.
Pocket Blush may not reference Strawberry Girl Makeup by name, but its intent is clear. Just like Rhode's Peptide Glazing Fluid, it offers an easy way to recreate a trend that Bieber, knowingly or unknowingly, birthed.
It's a pretty untouchable strategy and for that, we have to give it up to Bieber and her team for turning Rhode into more than just a celebrity beauty brand. Every product it releases is a cultural moment — even if it bears an uncanny resemblance to a vulva.
